How Models Fail
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Argument: The use of models is pervasive throughout the natural sciences and in particular physics. Now, the natural sciences have been extremely successful and continuously progressing since their very inception in early modern times. Why should not social sciences learn from the successful methods of the natural sciences and employ models?
Response: So physicists do it just the same way? Nay, they don't! Throughout the natural sciences it is common practice to test models and theories rigorously against experiments and empirical observations. The success of the natural sciences is not only due to mathematical modeling alone, but rather to the co-evolution of mathematical theory and measurement technology.
However, even if social modelers were to apply the same standards of empirical rigor as natural scientists, success is not at all guaranteed. For, it may be the case that social life just does not follow any mathematical laws that are simple enough for us to understand or any mathematical laws at all. It is a contingent fact that physical nature follows laws that can be described mathematically. But there is no necessity that this will turn out to be the case for all realms of being. God has never promised that it would.